The State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science (Wuhan University) was established in 2003, and approved in 2006 by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China. Professor Guangming Tan serves as the present director of the Laboratory. The Laboratory Academic Committee consists of 15 famous experts. The chainman of the Academic Committee is Professor Shouren Zheng. The Laboratory employs 35 staff members, including 27 professors, 5 associate professors and 3 lecturers.

The main research areas of the Laboratory are: temporal and spatial distribution of water resources, efficient utilization and optimal configuration of water resources, flood occurrence mechanism and mitigation measures, numerical simulation of structure and construction process of hydropower projects, transient process of hydropower stations and its control.

The Laboratory has made outstanding achievements in the following research fields: nonlinear flood forecasting; sustainable management of water resources, water-saving irrigation, management and control of effluent irrigation, inter-basin water transfer, river sedimentation, hydropower resources exploitation, optimal structure design of hydropower station, optimal construction of hydropower project, transient process of hydropower stations and so on. Some of these achievements are the most advanced in China and also have made some considerable international impacts.

Currently, the Laboratory occupies a total building area of 11 000 m² and owns the fixed assets worth 60 million RMB. With a large number of instruments and experimental systems equipped and developed from various kinds of complex and comprehensive scientific researches, the Laboratory has become one of the leading laboratories of the same kind in China and abroad.

The laboratory is under the direct administration of Wuhan University and operates independently, which provides a creative and innovative platform for the water resources and hydropower engineering science.

The laboratory runs under the policies of 'openness, flexibility, competition, cooperation'. The section directors are responsible for managing the research groups or programs. The floating positions are open for the application. The laboratory has set up the Open Research Fund in five research areas and welcomes applications from domestic and overseas researchers.